In a bid to attract more foreign investments, the government is considering freeing prices of locally produced oil and natural gas from state controls. Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who is on a week-long visit to US-Canada said, ‘we are at an advanced stage - a Cabinet paper is under consideration on how to move from a production sharing model to revenue sharing model for oil and gas explored and excavated by companies.’
The new model is based on recommendations of a panel headed by C Rangarajan, Chairman of Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, which also suggested moving to a market determined prices for natural gas in five years. Further, for the intervening period, it suggested hybrid model of global benchmark gas price and imported LNG.
As per the new regime, companies will be asked to bid for oil and gas they will share with the government from the very first day of output. Companies bidding for the highest share will get licence to explore and once the government is guaranteed the highest share, it will relieve itself of the current task of regulating price of gas.
Currently, for exploration and production of oil and gas through a production sharing regime, India allows 100% foreign direct investment (FDI), wherein the companies are allowed to recover all their investment before sharing profits with the government. However, this was criticized by the official auditor CAG, according to which it incentivizes companies to keep raising capital cost so that government profit is delayed.
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